Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

458 MOVING PICTURE WORLD February 5, 1927 Production Tips, Kinks and Wrinkles (Continued from preceding page) In figure 3, D, the same window is shown with a larger and slightly different style lambrequin and with the draperies replaced with cords and tassels. The decorative scheme should be in harmonious contrast to the cyclorama. Thus if a rather dark blue, or purple, plush eye is used the window sash could be in bright orange with the sateen hangings and the lambrequin in lavender decorated in turquoise and black. Or reverse the treatment using a tan or cream sateen or burlap eye; window in turquoise and lambrequin and hangings in medium blue or purple with orange predominating in decorations. The lambrequin is cut from wall board, batten on upper edge, back; decorated to suit and hung from fly batten by means of fine wires. The hangings or cords are attached to back of lambrequin. THE SCENIC CAMEO. In figure 1 is shown a window balcony with a lake vista. The balcony balustrade is a set piece cut from wall board to suggest an ornamental iron railing. The scene may be a painted drop depicting a moonlit lake with distant mountains : or a set built up from ground row’s of water and mountains with a plain sky drop and a rising moon. A great depth, or distance, should be sought for in this setting. This is accomplished in careful handling of colors and light. Views of entirely different nature may, of course, be introduced: Ocean, Valley, Wooded Glen, Oriental, Park, City house-tops, Egyptian, etc. AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN. In figure 3, B, is shown another idea. This is a garden gate placed between two stucco finished posts, (from a previous presentation) flanked by flower-covered trellises. A set tree is placed back of the gate ; a few strings of willow foliage suspended from above. Lighting : Blue bunch from lower left, white spot from right overhead dimming gradually to pink. Canary spot touching lower part of posts and gate from right floor. Painting: Trellis, gate and posts in white or cream. Garden drop for backing. Vera Steadman and Edna Marion in Christie comedies. articles suitable for use on the stage. A wide-awake property man will “beg, borrow or steal” props, failing in this the props are built. The lamp shown in detail in figure 3 will be found unusually effective as a stage fixture, yet extremely simple to make. Decide on height desired for the lamp and divide the full-length design, D, into as many spaces as the lamp is to be feet in height, each space to represent one foot. This procedure scales the plan for construction uses. A Good Story must be present to yield the best result. But there is another factor; perhaps of even greater importance, and that is the assembling. Poor editing has done more to waste of producers’ money than any single factor. The best acting in an admirable story under the most competent direction can be utterly ruined through the clumsy cutting or an unthinking editor and the finest situations can be made trite and irritating though poorly written sub-titles or even an excess of titles. So in the last analysis we have not three but five factors. There must be story, acting, direction, editing and titling. Is it any wonder that there are so many “just program” pictures produced when it is so manifestly impossible always to assemble a quintet that shall act in perfect harmony of thought? The wonder is that with five chances to spoil a production there are so> many really good productions made. It is very true that more good pictures <ire made through accident than design, but the moral of this study seems to be that a competent director, given the freest hand is the most likely solution to the problem of good pictures. The Fair P. A. Replies (Continued from page 408) to masculine “Hoyle,” and therein lies the challenge. For surely it’s well within our prerogative to play the publicity game with any weapon that comes to hand in this man-made worLd. We must assure ourselves first, though, that it is a weapon. With some editors it may be ; with some it certainly is not. Our job, as I see it, is to study the brute and make mental note of what bait is likely to get the best results with each. If he’s susceptible to sheer silk stockings, we should, by all means, drag those out of the drawer on the morning we expect to “make” his office, even if it happens to be a rainy morning, when they’re likely to get generously spattered with New York mud. If he likes Paris hats and coy smiles, it certainly is our job to see that he gets them, if they are within our power to produce. However, at the risk of being thought lacking in this “It” which you consider so potent, I must confess that I have found its effect too transitorjr to be very valuable as a business asset. I’ll grant, if you like, that, under the influence of this “faint, sweet aroma” you mention, an editor may allow us to leave a larger sheaf of copy on his desk, but always comes the cold, grey dawn of reason when he boomerangs back to his original state of hard-boiled practicality. That usually happens on make-up day, and by that time, the chances are ten to one that lie’s forgotten who brought the story, the selling talk that went with it and the “aroma” that pervaded the whole transaction. The only thing that concerns him then is whether it’s a good story and whether or not it will fit the space. And so the “little girl from Oshkosh’" learns, as time goes on. to save her smiles for her social shieks, and give her editors the stuff that good magazines are made of. A GARDEN CORNER. Figure 3, D, shows still another effective treatment. This also sees the use of the stucco posts, this time with the arch added, and a piece of stucco wall carrying off left A palm is visible through the arch-way and a vase, filled with flowers, occupies the corner in the foreground. A set tree shows over the wall. Lighting: Straw spot from right on upper part of arch-way. Blue flood from left with vivid green spot from left floor, emphasizing vase and flowers. Sky or garden drop backing. BUILDING PROPS. FLOOR LAMPS. While the ordinary size props are comparatively easy to obtain it is very often difficult indeed to locate large, unusual A Good Story (Continued from page 407) without competent players. He may be able to make a poor actor do his’best, but he cannot make a really good actor out of an incompetent, though he can — and often does — cause a finished player to act like a tyro. One very recent production gives the ptiful spectacle of one of our most finished actresses chewing the scenery like a repertoire star on a tank-town circuit. In this picture Mr. Brown handles his human material as well as his literary script. The same sureness of touch which brings out the best in the story gives the players their utmost effect. It follows, then, that there are three elements to any successful play; good story, good playing and good direction. All three